Image-forming devices, such as inkjet printers, laser printers, facsimile machines, and multifunction devices, typically have one or more mechanisms that consume a relatively large amount of peak power. For example, laser printers and other devices that employ laser-printing mechanisms have heaters that consume a large amount of peak power to fuse toner onto media. As another example, inkjet printers and other devices that employ inkjet-printing mechanisms have motors connected to rollers that consume a large amount of peak power to feed media through them. These devices usually consume this peak power only momentarily, such as when the heaters of laser printers are turned on, or when the rollers of inkjet printers first are accelerated.
In areas where the external power source is unreliable, this momentary large amount of peak power consumption can cause undesired voltage dips. Many devices, upon experiencing voltage dips to a sufficiently low level, will reset. This can be inconvenient and frustrating to the users of these devices. They may have to restart print jobs, for example. More seriously, saved settings and data, such as saved faxes in the case of devices having facsimile capability, may be lost. Currently incoming or outgoing faxes may prematurely terminate. The reliability of these devices can be improved by reducing the susceptibility of these devices to dips in supply voltages.